Emergence of the Gospel of Judas Offers a Tangled Tale of Its Own

By BARRY MEIER and JOHN NOBLE WILFORD; Elisabetta Povoledo contributed reporting from Rome for this article.

Published: April 13, 2006

When the National Geographic Society announced to great fanfare last week that it had gained access to a 1,700-year-old document known as the Gospel of Judas, it described how a deteriorating manuscript, unearthed in Egypt three decades ago, had made its way through the shady alleys of the antiquities market to a safe-deposit box on Long Island and eventually to a Swiss art dealer who ''rescued'' it from obscurity.

But there is even more to the story.

The art dealer was detained several years ago in an unrelated Italian antiquities smuggling investigation. And after she failed to profit from the sale of the gospel in the private market, she struck a deal with a foundation run by her lawyer that would let her make about as much as she would have made on that sale, or more.

Later, the National Geographic Society paid the foundation to restore the manuscript and bought the rights to the text and the story about the discovery. As part of her arrangement with the foundation, the dealer, Frieda Tchacos Nussberger, stands to gain $1 million to $2 million from those National Geographic projects, her lawyer said. There may even be more.

Details of how the manuscript was found are clouded. According to National Geographic, it was found by farmers in an Egyptian cave in the 1970's, sold to a dealer and passed through various hands in Europe and the United States. Legal issues in its transit are equally vague.

No one questions the authenticity of the Judas gospel, which depicts Judas Iscariot not as a betrayer of Jesus but as his favored disciple.

But the emerging details are raising concerns among some archaeologists and other scholars at a time of growing scrutiny of the dealers who sell antiquities and of the museums and collectors who buy them. The information also calls into question the completeness of National Geographic's depiction of some individuals like Ms. Tchacos Nussberger and its disclosure of all the financial relationships involved.

Terry Garcia, the vice president for mission programs at National Geographic, which is based in Washington, said that the organization had ''heard some rumors'' about possible legal problems involving Ms. Tchacos Nussberger but could not confirm them. He also noted that the organization had disclosed its relationship with the foundation, the Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art.

Mr. Garcia emphasized that he believed that issues like Ms. Tchacos Nussberger's financial relationship with the foundation or questions about other antiquities she sold were not relevant to the story of the Gospel of Judas. He added that National Geographic had taken on the project because it saw an opportunity to help save a unique document.

''It is not every day that you find a lost gospel,'' Mr. Garcia said.

But scholars who have campaigned against the trade in artifacts of questionable provenance said they were troubled by the whole episode.

''We are dealing with a looted object,'' said Jane C. Waldbaum, president of the Archaeological Institute of America, a professional society. ''The artifact was poorly handled for years because the people holding it were more concerned with making money than protecting it.''

For her part, Ms. Tchacos Nussberger rejected any suggestion that she was trying to profit from the Gospel of Judas. She described her run-in with Italian officials as inconsequential.

''I went through hell and back, and I saved something for humanity,'' Ms. Tchacos Nussberger said in a telephone interview. ''I would have given it for nothing to someone who would have saved it.''

Last week, National Geographic began a large campaign for the Gospel of Judas, featuring it in two new books, a television documentary, an exhibition and the May issue of National Geographic magazine.

The organization did not buy the document. Instead, it paid $1 million to the Maecenas Foundation, effectively for the manuscript's contents. Part of the revenues generated by the National Geographic projects go to the foundation.

The foundation was set up some years ago by Ms. Tchacos Nussberger's lawyer, Mario Roberty, well before it became involved with the Gospel of Judas. Mr. Roberty is the only official of the foundation, which he said was involved in projects like returning antiquities to their countries of origin. He said that when Ms. Tchacos Nussberger turned over the document to the foundation in 2001, he quickly contacted officials in Egypt and assured them that the manuscript would be returned there. He said the foundation had clear legal title to the document.

In National Geographic's narratives, the manuscript takes a long journey through the antiquities trade. Those stories describe Ms. Tchacos Nussberger efforts to sell the Gospel of Judas privately soon after buying it and her subsequent role in its restoration. She is portrayed as driven by religious conviction to save the document.

''I think I was chosen by Judas to rehabilitate him,'' Ms. Tchacos Nussberger, 65, is quoted as saying in one of the society's books, ''The Lost Gospel,'' by Herbert Krosney. Mr. Krosney is also an independent television producer who brought the gospel project to National Geographic.